A few months ago, I wrote about the case of Mr. Kensley Hawkins on this blog. As a reminder, Kensley Hawkins had accumulated $11,000 over 20 years in prison from jobs that he has had while behnd bars. The State of Illinois wanted to garnish those earnings to have Mr. Hawkins pay for the costs of his own incarceration. Mr. Hawkins has been making about $2 a day building furniture at Stateville Prison which amounts to about $75 a month.

Today, I received this e-mail from the good folks at SNR Denton, a law firm that represented Mr. Hawkins pro-bono in his appeal [the e-mail has been slightly edited for length]:

“SNR Denton obtained victory (7-0) in its appeal before the Illinois Supreme Court in the case, titled People v. Hawkins. People v. Hawkins was on an appeal from an Illinois Appellate Court decision that upheld a $456,000 judgment against Kensley Hawkins for the cost of his incarceration and allowed the Department of Corrections to collect the approximate $11,000 that Mr. Hawkins had earned and saved over 21 years while working in prison as a furniture assembler.

This attachment of savings was in addition to the legislatively mandated 3% offset that was automatically deducted from Mr. Hawkins’ prison wages to pay toward his incarceration costs. The relevant statute requires that “{a}ll other wages” beyond the 3% offset must be deposited in the inmate’s account.

Mr. Hawkins was represented pro bono by SNR Denton. In addition, the Institute for People with Criminal Records filed an Amicus Curiae Brief in support of Mr. Hawkins’ appeal.

In the ruling authored by Supreme Court Justice Rita Garman, the court took issue with the Department’s policy noting that: “Here, the Department’s literal interpretation of sections 3–12–5 and 3–7–6 produces a result that is absurd, unjust, and that our analysis indicates was not contemplated by the legislature. We therefore reject that interpretation.”

A separate concurrence by Justice Lloyd Karmeier, joined by Justice Charles Freeman, noted the adverse impact of the Department of Corrections policy. Justice Karmeier wrote: “Work may be its own reward for some, but probably not for most inmates in the Department of Corrections. Once inmates realized that the extra work necessary to generate savings would benefit only the Department of Corrections, not them, they would quickly reevaluate the utility of prison employment. The result would likely be a precipitous drop in the amount of labor available to prison industries. If the number of work hours plummeted, the various enterprises operated by prison industries would no longer be able to provide the services and produce the goods necessary to keep them economically viable. The income they generate would evaporate, and they would no longer be able to provide any meaningful contribution toward offsetting the substantial costs of maintaining this state’s prisons. In addition, any real hope of providing inmates with marketable skills, instilling a work ethic, or improving their ability to support themselves and their families following their release would be lost. In the end, virtually the entire economic burden necessary to support this state’s large and growing prison population, while they are incarcerated and after their release, would revert to Illinois’ taxpayers.”

Studies have found that inmates like Mr. Hawkins who participate in vocational training programs have a 20% lower rate of recidivism. As the Institute noted in its Amicus Brief, “Not only is there a direct connection between unemployment and crime, there is considerable evidence of a connection between unemployment and repeat crime, i.e. recidivism.”

The Institute’s Amicus Brief also highlights the severe financial problems inmates face upon their release. For example, a study found of the more than 20,000 inmates who were released to Chicago communities in 2005, a staggering 1,200 of them ended up homeless.

“Our victory shows that Illinois is serious in promoting the basic hope of its prison system – namely, that once inmates are released they will not return to a life of crime – they are showing inmates that working and saving pays off. This is a necessary step to prevent inmates from immediately falling into poverty and homeless and back into the cycle of crime. Mr. Hawkins and other inmates in his position are not asking for a handout by any means. They simply want to be able to use the money they earned while working in prison to get them back on their feet,” said David Simonton, SNR Denton’s appellate counsel for Mr. Hawkins.

“Indeed, from a practical point of view, the confiscatory policy espoused by the Department of Corrections was self-defeating and financially backwards,” Mr. Simonton continued. “The State would have received a relative pittance from an inmate, as compared to the cost of his or her incarceration, but for the inmate it would have been everything. Without any savings to fall back on, the inmate was more likely slide back into a life of crime, which would cost the State far more in future incarceration expense. We are very happy that the Court’s decision unanimously recognized the absurd nature of the Department’s policy. ”

Out of deep respect for the lawyers who argued this case on behalf of Mr. Hawkins, I will refrain from commenting on some of the arguments advanced by the Justices in this case. That will be for another post on another day. You can read the judicial opinion for yourselves HERE

My friend and colleague Katy is a passionate advocate for young people. She has devoted a large chunk of her life to working with young people who are in conflict with various institutions (including the law). Along with being a gifted therapist, she also ran a poetry circle for incarcerated girls. As part of that work, she and the young women produced an excellent poetry chapbook titled “Words Stronger Than Walls.” I plan to feature poems from the chapbook periodically on the blog to highlight the talent that so many young people in trouble with the law possess. This is part of a continuing effort to feature more prisoner voices on this blog.

By a young woman at JTDC (August 2010)

From the introduction of the book:

CC JTDC is a closed system within a segregated city, and this is our attempt to communicate beyond these white walls. The girls at the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (CC JTDC) are housed under the WINGS (Working In Nurturing Girls’ Success) program, and range in age from 13 to 18. In a given week, there could be more than thirty or less than fifteen girls detained for over a year or for just one night. I am the clinical social worker providing mental health services to the girls of WINGS, along with all levels of amazing staff. (Adults working in detention are known by their last names only, and the juvenile residents cannot have their last names published.) There is much to say about our current (deeply unjust) justice system, but one of the fundamental issues is how it dehumanizes Chicago’s children. I started the poetry group in April 2009 as a space in which these kids were not being corrected, shaped, or taught, allowed to share a quiet moment of creativity and equality between staff and residents.

Once a week the girls who want to participate in Poetry Circle move downstairs to the classroom area. We put the desks in a circle, pass out the opening statement, pencils, and notebooks, and get to work. Everyone reads a poem, everyone writes a poem, and everyone shares their poem in an atmosphere of supportive listening. We snap our fingers after each poet reads, you know, for a jazzy vibe. The Circle has had two fantastic Poetry Slams (and counting) where the girls and staff perform their work and everyone pitches in to provide artwork, snacks and support.

Ugly Little Monster
By Alejandra

All my life we lived with pain,
I’d rather sit here and watch the rain.
It all started when I was a little thing.
I would beg my daddy for stuff but nothing would he bring.
Alcohol and drugs took over his body.
All he ever does now is hit my mommy.
“Daddy please stop!” me and my sisters would yell.
He always yelled back, “I don’t care, I know I’m going to hell.”
Days went by and he stopped drinking.
Weeks later he’d come home and start again with the beating.
Mommy and my sisters moved out and left him.

I had always said I wanted to be like my daddy – a hero,
Once beer, weed, and cocaine took over I realize he wasn’t no “hero” –
He was a big old zero.
He passed away on August 22, 2008.
I want this to be a dream so I could awake.
I’m getting older and I wanna live my life,
But I’m going through his same steps, playing with knives.
Weed, liquor, and cocaine have all been in my system.

Now mommy don’t want me
cause she compares me to Daddy
She keeps calling me a monster.
I guess I’ll live my life full of pain and disaster,
Because as much as I wanna change I keep dancing with the devil.
I hope and pray he doesn’t take me forever.

For now I am what everybody calls me:
“Ugly Little Monster just like yo daddy.”

My Life
By Ray

My life it’s not perfect or right.
It was almost taken overnight.
Bullet to the hip could have paralyzed me for life –
Tears running down my eyes
Screaming for help
no one in sight.
Laying in the hospital bed,
I thought I was gone.
Never going back to the crib
leaving my family all alone.
My life it’s not perfect or right
In and out of JTDC
How did I end up here
Well: gang banging drug slingin’
Not going to school
All of this, it’s not cool
My life it’s not perfect or right
But I thank God every day of my life.

Wait Patiently & Pray
By Rikita

I hate being locked up in a place where I can’t get out.
I hate that the system is slow and don’t go the full route.
I hate that Cook County don’t report what is really going on behind these walls.

All I can do is wait patiently and pray

I hate hearing these doors “POP” when it’s tome to get up.
I hate wearing the same color clothes — pink and blue.
I hate seeing WINGS CCJTDC everywhere I go.
I hate going back and forth to court every two weeks.

All I know is God will lead me on and I will continue to PRAY.

From Just Seeds - Critical Resistance Portfolio Project

My friend Lewis has created a terrific new publication titled “Miklat Miklat: A Transformative Justice Zine. I have written and continue to write a lot about the concept and practice of transformative justice on this blog. I believe that transformative justice and community accountability models for addressing harm offer the best opportunities for dismantling the prison industrial complex.

Time and again people ask me for an easy definition of the concept. They have a lot of questions about how transformative justice would work in “real-life.” I always resist those questions. In part, this is because I don’t have all of the answers. More importantly though, I resist definitions because I resent being asked to provide THE solution to ending prisons. The solution(s) will need to be formed in community – through sustained dialogue and by trying out many different models. No one person will have all of the answers. It is all of our responsibility to address the inhumanity of the prison industrial complex. The key though is for us to develop and to actually try out community accountability models. We then need to document those examples and share them with others. That is how we will transform the current broken and immoral criminal legal system.

What I love about the Miklat Miklat zine that Lewis has created along with his friend and collaborator, Micah Bazant, is that it offers examples that will not in their words “answer all of your questions about transformative justice, forgiveness, and social transformation, but examples that raised questions [sic] as we thought about and tried to locate Miklat in our own lives.”

At this moment in time, at this juncture in our journey, the questions that we ask about transformative justice are more important than the purported “solutions” that we can offer. It takes time to envision and build new worlds….

So what is Miklat? Lewis and Micah offer this description:

“The Torah also describes six Cities of Refuge or Ir l’Miklat. Miklat means refuge, but its three-letter root has two other meanings; absorption and integration. The Talmud tells of road signs in biblical times that pointed towards Cities of Refuge, allowing people who had transgressed or been put out of their community of origin a place of refuge, absorption and integration. The Miklat can also be understood as an internal, spiritual process — of shedding an old self, being absorbed into a new worldview, and seeking a more esoteric form of refuge. It can also be understood in more concrete terms, as a city that accepts ‘transgressors’ of all kinds into its walls, forgiving transgression and providing safety from punishment.”

The authors of the zine both “got interested in the idea of the City of Refuge as it relates to transformative and restorative justice.” The zine is a manifestation of this interest and it offers a very good definition of the concept of transformative justice. I will not give it away. I encourage you to read the whole zine for yourselves.

Readers should know that a couple of posts from this blog appear in the zine. However, I would still be highly recommending it if none of my posts were included. I have read through the zine three times already and I am finding new things in it every time. I highly recommend this publication as an invaluable resource to all who are seriously thinking about ending prisons and about real justice.

I will be taking a break from regular blogging over the next few days as I prepare for the release of a couple of reports and complete work on several other projects. Have a terrific next few days!

Update: I neglected to mention that the zine accompanies an art exhibition. Photos of the specific art piece associated with the zine will be forthcoming.

Update 2: Lewis and Micah have revised and updated the original Miklat, Miklat zine. Here is the updated version (PDF).

I received an essay titled “I.D.O.C. Bilks Prisoners for Millions Through Commissary Scheme” by Joseph Dole who is incarcerated at Tamms SuperMax a couple of days ago. I have written here and here about the millions of dollars in profit that prisons and jails make by “selling” goods to those who are incarcerated. An article in the Texas Tribune last year reported that prisoners in that state spent 95 million dollars at commissaries.

In his essay, Mr. Dole makes a cogent and convincing case that the Illinois Department of Corrections has been and continues to unfairly tax and exploit prisoners. He writes:

“In order to generate more revenue to help pay for a prison system that is both over capacity and siphoning money away from much-needed funding for infrastructure, education, and healthcare, the Illinois General Assembly passed Senate Bill 0629 on November 20, 2003, after both houses overrode disgraced Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s amendatory veto. This bill, which became Public Act 93-0607 on November 25, 2003, effectively amended 730 ILCS 5/3-7-2a granting the I.D.O.C. the authority to add up to a 25% surcharge to all non-tobacco products and up to a 35% surcharge on all tobacco products sold at facility-maintained commissaries throughout the I.D.O.C. Prior to this amendment the surcharge was capped at 10%. The increase took effect on January 1, 2004, the effective date of the amendment.

Illinois prisoners groaned as the prices on commissary rose. As captive consumers and the state’s poorest segment of the population, this increase meant a drastic reduction in what they were able to purchase with the limited funds they have, especially considering that the ten-dollar state pay prisoners receive has never seen an increase to adjust for inflation. One can imagine the depreciation of purchasing power over the decades. The price of postage alone has tripled in the past four decades while state pay remained the same.

Ironically, it wasn’t the indigent prisoners who cried the loudest about the increase in surcharges, but rather it was the guards. Their union, the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) was able to convince Illinois House Representative Ron Stephens to sponsor a bill (HB4559) to again amend 730 ILCS 5/3-7-2a. This time the amendment was to effectively exempt the guards and other I.D.O.C. employees from the increases in surcharges enacted by SB0629 and cap the surcharges they would have to pay at 10%. The new bill also made sure, though, that the surcharges that were collected from prisoners could still go to pay the commissary employee’s salaries. HB4559 was filed by Rep. Stephens on April 26, 2006. It was originally known as the “Restore fair commissary pricing for I.D.O.C. employees” bill. Ironically, it is only the middle class guards and employees who are seemingly entitled to fair pricing of commissary goods and not the indigent prisoners who can’t choose to shop at Walmart instead. With AFSCME backing, it quickly sailed through both houses of the Illinois General Assembly with a wide margin of support, and the new amendment became law as Public Act 94-0913, effective June 23, 2006, a mere two months after proposed.”

Read Mr. Dole entire illuminating essay HERE (PDF).

I have to admit that I did a double take when I read this::

Texas is close to enacting a law that would provide teachers with detailed information about the criminal histories of their students, opening juvenile files that have always been confidential and are unavailable in most states.

The legislation, spurred by the fatal stabbing of a high school teacher in Tyler in 2009, is adding to a national debate over whether teacher safety should outweigh the rights of young offenders, who traditionally have moved through the juvenile justice system with their privacy protected.

The new disclosure rules were passed by legislators with little public attention last month. A spokeswoman for Gov. Rick Perry said the governor is “thoughtfully” reviewing the measure before deciding whether to sign it.

The use of the word “thoughtfully” in connection with Rick Perry is surely a joke. The governor who oversaw the killing of an innocent man is not going to care about keeping juvenile criminal records confidential.

Here is the most distressing part of this entire gambit:

Texas teacher groups strongly support the measure.

“We feel like we can deal with things when we’re in the know,” said Grace Mueller, a middle school teacher in San Marcos and an officer with the Texas Classroom Teachers Association. “When you’re blindsided, that’s when you get fearful or put yourself or someone else in harm’s way.”

Let me say this, as someone who formerly taught high school students and currently teaches college classes, I have the highest and deepest respect for educators. I think that it is the most difficult and most unappreciated vocation out there. All one needs to do is to look at what Republican governors are doing to collective bargaining rights for educators and at how many states are slashing teacher positions to understand how undervalued educators are in this country. That said, this is patently wrong and teachers’ unions and groups should STRONGLY oppose this law as a deep violation of privacy and as an enemy to social justice. I agree completely with Lawrence Wojcik quoted in the article who says:

“A kid walks into a classroom where the teacher knows all the details of the offense, the teacher would have to be super-human to be open-minded,” said Lawrence Wojcik, a Chicago attorney who chairs the American Bar Association’s juvenile justice committee.

What the hell is going on here? Seriously, what is the teacher going to be able to do once he/she receives information about a young person’s juvenile criminal record? Will the teacher have access to additional resources to deal with any potential needs that the student may have? Absolutely not. Let’s also be blunt, most of our elementary and high school teachers are white women and most of the youth in Texas with criminal records will be youth of color. Will this disclosure increase the likelihood of forming strong relationships between students and their teachers? I submit once again that the answer to this is a resounding “No.”

The article offers this important insight that I completely agree with:

However, the scope of the measure alarms some juvenile justice advocates. They worry that students who have committed crimes will be automatically placed in alternative education programs or subjected to other prejudicial treatment. They also point out that the written arrest notifications could haunt students even if they are cleared.

This is a terrible idea. It really is.

Josh MacPhee - Just Seeds

Here is another piece by Randy Miller who is currently incarcerated at the Indiana State Prison.

Behind These Bars
By Randy Miller

I crept into your dreams last night,
but you never knew I was there.
I kissed your eyes, your nose, your lips,
and ran my fingers through your hair.
So beautiful you were just lying there,
as still as the morning dew.
Although you didn’t know it,
I laid down next to you.
As I laid there next to you,
night slowly turned to dawn.
It was then you turned on your side,
and then began to yawn.
I rose to leave you lying there,
reaching for the door.
A tear rolled down your cheek,
and softly hit the floor.
So tonight when you close your eyes,
and drift off towards the stars.
I hope you can feel me next to you,
even though I’m behind these bars.

I received a zine from a young man named Paul Brown this past week. It is excellent and frankly I am so grateful that he has taken the time to document the 11 months that he spent working in a jail in Seattle. The zine is titled “Eleven Months” and I highly recommend it.

He describes the zine as follows: “Eleven Months is a zine about my experience teaching in the jail in downtown Seattle. It is a mix of experience, dreams, analysis, rumors, reflections and internal e-mails. I wrote it as an attempt to condense a magnificent, traumatic, grueling experience into something I could share with others.”

By Colin Matthes – Just Seeds Artists’ Cooperative

One of the most moving parts of the zine for me speaks to the feeling of despair that often threatens to overwhelm those who spend a significant amount of time working in jails or prisons. Here is what Paul writes:

“The jail has affected me tremendously. I feel less hope for the world, for humanity. I laugh less now than I did a year ago. I can’t remember what I used to be like. Now, when I feel hope, I treasure it, because I know it will be crushed on my bus ride to work the next day. Now I know that the world is a horribly fucked-up place, where people suffer and die and no one cares. Now I know that people kill at work. (I’m talking about cops, who kill directly, and also bureaucrats and politicians, who make decisions that deny people health care, housing, etc.) Work kills people and their relationships. People are seen as fuck-ups and no one gives them a chance. The system swallows people whole, spits them out more fucked-up than they came in. The effect that I am able to have is infinitesimal. I hope that once this year is over I get some of my hope back. Despair is a sensible reaction in this world, in this place. But it isn’t pleasant.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the vast amount of suffering happening above me (the education office is on the first floor of the jail, inmates are “housed” on floors 2-11). I get kites* from inmates who have no one to turn to, who will be homeless on their release, who are in abusive relationships. I’ve gotten desensitized to everything. Instead of a sharp feeling that could move me to tears, it’s a feeling comparable to a dull ache. Occasionally the tears come through, but not nearly as much as they should. It makes me feel kind of dead.”

Interestingly, I just wrote last week about my own experience of feeling anxious about having to visit someone at Cook County Jail before I had read Paul’s zine. I did visit Cook County Jail on Friday and I am still around to write about it. I think that it is essential for as many of us as possible to enter jails and prisons in whatever capacity we can. We need to be witnesses to what is happening inside these hell holes. Yes, these experiences can feel soul-deadening but it is nothing compared to the people who are locked in cages for sometimes 23 hours a day. It is nothing compared to knowing that you will die in a cell. Feeling despair is OK. I think that it would make us inhumane if we didn’t despair at what happens on the inside. Yet, we do not have the option to give up. We can’t opt-out. We cannot abandon those on the inside to the cruelties of the prison industrial complex. Our liberation is inextricably linked to theirs. No justice, no peace for any of us.

I have so much empathy for the feelings and words shared by Paul. I wrote a post last year titled “How do you keep from giving up?” One salient portion of that post shared a quote by Cornel West that I find relevant to the idea resisting a feeling of hopelessness:

“It takes courage to cut against the grain and become non-conformist. It takes courage to wake up and stay awake instead of engaging in complacent slumber. It takes courage to shatter conformity and cowardice.” I would add that it takes courage to keep from giving up.

Thank you Paul for your zine and your determination to “wake up and stay awake instead of engaging in complacent slumber.”

My sister shared this poem with me a couple of weeks ago and it has made an indelible impression.

Reverse: A Lynching
Ansel Elkins

Return the tree, the moon, the naked man
Hanging from the indifferent branch
Return blood to his brain, breath to his heart
Reunite the neck with the bridge of his body
Untie the knot, undo the noose
Return the kicking feet to ground
Unwhisper the word jesus
Rejoin his penis with his loins
Resheathe the knife Regird the calfskin belt through trouser loops
Refasten the brass buckle
Untangle the spitting men from the mob
Unsay the word nigger
Release the firer’s finger from its trigger
Return the revolver to its quiet holster
Return the man to his home
Unwidow his wife
Unbreak the window
Unkiss the crucifix of her necklace
Unsay Hide the children in the back, his last words
Repeal the wild bell of his heart
Reseat his family at the table over supper
Relace their fingers in prayer, unbless the bread
Rescind the savagery of men
Return them from animal to human, reborn in the long run
Backward to the purring pickup
Reignite the Ford’s engine, its burning headlights
Retreat down the dirt road, tires speeding
Backward into rising dust
Backward past cornfields, past the night floating moths
Rescind the whiskey from the guts
Unswallowed, unswigged, the tongue unstung
Rehouse the flask in the field coat’s interior pocket
Unbare the teeth, unwhet the appetite
Return the howl to its wolf
Return the shovel to the barn, the rope to the horse’s stable
Resurrect the dark from its heart housed in terror

Reenter the night through its door of mercy

Source: Boston Review

I spent last Thursday evening speaking with some youth from the Chicago Freedom School (CFS) about juvenile justice issues for a focus group that I was leading. As usual, every time I speak to young leaders, I get so much energy and my hope is sustained.

It will not come as a surprise to anyone who works with youth of color or talks with them regularly that racial profiling by law enforcement is what they most wanted to discuss. Regular readers will recall that I am one of the founders of CFS. I have to admit that when I was conceiving of the Freedom school, I didn’t think that criminal legal issues would play such a central role in the concerns of the young people who would participate in our programming. Yet these issues are in fact at the forefront of the minds of most of the young people at CFS.

CFS Youth Getting On the EL - Chicago Tribune 6-12-11

Just today, some of the members of the CFS Youth Leadership Board (YLB) are featured on the front page of the Sunday Edition of the Chicago Tribune. Some of the concerns that we spoke about on Thursday evening find expression again in the article which is focused on young people’s responses to the so-called “Chicago youth mob attacks” that took place on the Gold Coast last weekend. Since this incident, Downtown Chicago has been crawling with police officers. This has obviously not gone unnoticed by young people in this city. Here are some wise words by Allie (who is a member of the YLB) about that matter from the article:

Alexandra “Allie” Pates, 17, lives in Hyde Park and said her parents started taking her downtown to the movie theaters, restaurants and stores when she was very young. She said that now she often takes the Metra train downtown with five or six friends, and they sometimes meet up with others, further swelling their ranks.

“People feel threatened by black teens and even more so since the (incidents) happened” last weekend, said Allie, who’s black. “It’s unfortunate because people will buy into the stereotypes even more.”

While she said she believes the police should help maintain safety for everyone, she’s concerned that groups of black teens will face greater scrutiny than others.

“The police seem to assume something negative is going to happen or that you’re up to no good, if you’re a bunch of black kids,” she said. “I’ve never been in trouble in my life, but you don’t get the benefit of the doubt.”

She said she realizes that groups of young people can be intimidating.

“But at the end of the day, we want what everyone wants: to get together and have a good time.”

Allie speaks to the complicated interplay between race, racism, and “suspect” identity. Her final words are instructive though: “we want what everyone wants.” This is wise beyond her 17 years. Then again, Allie is in fact brilliant and has an analysis of the world that eludes people twice her age.

In the next couple of weeks, I will release a report about juvenile arrests in Chicago with my friend and colleague Cait Patterson. The report is part of an ongoing effort to educate our community members about the scope of juvenile arrests in the city. Without hard numbers, too many adults feel that they can remain disengaged from the plight of youth who come into police custody. Just last year there were over 27,000 arrests of juveniles 17 and under in the city of Chicago. Flooding Downtown Chicago with police officers will not stop a small percentage of young people from attacking people. If they are determined to attack folks, they will simply move to an area with less police presence. Instead of putting more cops on the streets downtown, perhaps Mayor Rahm Emmanuel will secure some employment opportunities for the thousands of young people in this city who are without jobs. The youth unemployment rate in Chicago exceeds 50%. As long as this is the case, young people who feel hopeless and need critical resources will search for what they need by any means necessary. I have used this Frederick Douglass quote before but it is particularly appropriate in this context:

Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where one class is made to feel that society is organized in a conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.

Source: New York Times